Interest spike in Russia’s once-derided Sputnik V vaccine is an ‘unvarnished, unmitigated’ geopolitical win
Russia’s decision to name the name the vaccine Sputnik V – after the world’s first satellite whose 1957 launch gave the Soviet Union a stunning triumph against the US to start the space race – has underlined the scale of the significance Moscow has attached to the breakthrough.
President Vladimir Putin’s announcement in August that Russia had cleared the world’s first COVID-19 vaccine for use before it even completed safety trials sparked scepticism worldwide, but the country may now be reaping its diplomatic dividends, Bloomberg reports
Countries are lining up for supplies of Sputnik V after peer-reviewed results published in The Lancet medical journal this week showed the Russian vaccine protects against the deadly virus about as well as US and European shots, and far more effectively than Chinese rivals.
The Lancet report says at least 20 countries have approved the inoculation for use, including EU member-state Hungary, while key markets such as Brazil and India are close to authorizing it.
Now Russia is setting its sights on the prized EU market as the bloc struggles with its vaccination programme amid supply shortages.
Results from the late-stage trials of 20,000 participants reviewed in The Lancet showed that the vaccine has a 91.6% success rate, and is arguably its biggest scientific breakthrough since the Soviet era.
Geopolitical significance
Bloomberg reports that in the global battle to defeat the coronavirus pandemic that’s claimed 2.3m lives in little more than a year, the race to obtain vaccines has assumed geopolitical significance as governments seek to emerge from the huge social and economic damage caused by lockdowns imposed to limit the spread of the virus.
That’s giving Russia an edge as one of a handful of countries where scientists have produced an effective defence.
“This is a watershed moment for us,” Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the state-run Russian Direct Investment Fund, which backed Sputnik V’s development and is in charge of its international roll-out, said in an interview.
Bloomberg reports that, according to Oksana Antonenko, a director at Control Risks consultancy, Sputnik’s success won’t change hostility toward Putin among Western governments, though it could strengthen Russia’s geopolitical clout in regions such as Latin America.
“With this vaccine, it’s proven itself capable of producing something new that’s in demand around the world.”
At first, dismissed and ridiculed by Western countries, Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine has not only been rehabilitated; it’s emerging as a powerful tool of influence abroad for President Putin.
“I think they possibly couldn’t be feeling more smug and delighted about the way things are going,” said Judy Twigg, a professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va., and an expert on the politics of global health.
“The Kremlin is having a whole lot of problems in other areas right now but this is one unvarnished, unmitigated win they can point to right now.”
Diplomatic dilemma
Twigg says for Russia’s adversaries, the choice of whether to use Sputnik or not presents an ethical dilemma, Canada’s CBC reported.
“You don’t want to give Vladimir Putin, in these circumstances, a political win…On the other hand, you need vaccines for your people. In fact, you needed [them] yesterday.”
That conundrum was on display during a recent visit to Moscow by the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell.
With the Kremlin facing widespread criticism for its imprisonment of Putin-foe Alexey Navalny and the subsequent mass arrests of thousands of protestors who came out in support of the opposition leader, Borrell’s words of criticism for Putin were overshadowed by his comments praising Sputnik and his hope it would be made widely available to the world.
This, the report says, could represent the Kremlin’s biggest potential breakthrough, as Russia has asked European regulators to examine a request for authorization of Sputnik V after Germany promised to help expedite the process.
With top EU officials still smarting over a sluggish vaccine roll-out, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said last week the Russian shot could be used to protect people in the 27-member bloc as long as it was approved by the European Medicines Agency.
France’s industry minister said she’s “agnostic” when it comes to approving the Russian vaccine. “Any vaccine that’s ready and that presents the safety and efficacy conditions is welcome in Europe,” Agnes Pannier-Runacher said.
“We have an interest in having the maximum of different vaccines and volumes.”
Latin America bonanza
Russia, pledging free shots for its 146m population, began output last year and the vaccine is currently being manufactured in countries including India, South Korea and Brazil.
President Putin still hasn’t said whether he’s been vaccinated, but other nations aren’t waiting to find out, and Latin America is proving fertile territory, Bloomberg reported.
The day after announcing he’d contracted COVID-19, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he’d thanked a “genuinely affectionate” Putin for pledging 24m doses of Sputnik V in the coming two months. Three days later, Bolivian President Luis Arce personally took delivery of a batch at La Paz airport.
Argentina, which has struggled to obtain vaccine supplies, started its mass inoculation programme after taking delivery of more than half a million Sputnik V doses by January.
It’s been joined by Nicaragua, Paraguay and Venezuela.
In Brazil, the region’s biggest market, a decision announced 3 February to scrap the requirement for phase three trials for emergency use may speed up approval.
The report says Guinea became the first African nation to start dispensing Sputnik V in December with Moscow-friendly President Alpha Conde and several ministers taking the vaccine.
Sputnik V liftoff
This week, it emerged a close ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed an agreement to produce Sputnik V in Turkey, even as the nation has deals to buy 50m doses of China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd’s CoronaVac vaccine and 4.5m doses of the Pfizer Inc-BioNTech SE shot.
The Lancet report says unlike the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, Sputnik V can be stored in a fridge rather than a freezer, making it easier to transport and distribute in poorer and hotter countries.
At around $20 for a two-shot vaccination, it’s also cheaper than most Western alternatives. While more expensive than AstraZeneca, the Russian inoculation has shown higher efficacy than the UK vaccine.
For some nations such as Iran, which received the first batch of a promised 2m doses this week, Russia offers a more palatable political alternative than Western suppliers. But, Bloomberg reports, Russia is also making inroads into countries such as the United Arab Emirates, which is traditionally close to the US and has approved Sputnik V for use.
Elsewhere, however, geopolitics are either less of a factor or simply outweighed by the lack of vaccine alternatives.
Russia shipped 10,000 doses of Sputnik V to the Palestinian Territories this week, allowing a mass-vaccination campaign to begin for the 4.5 million residents of the West Bank and Gaza.
Doctors and staff at Istishari Arab Hospital in Ramallah were among the first to get jabbed.
For the Palestinians, the issue is less about geopolitics, but more about survival.
“We don’t care about political issues. We have to protect our population against this pandemic and this virus,” said Dr. Ali Abed Rabbo, director of preventative health for the Palestinian Authority.
